Doing a Damn GUD Job Tracking the USFL

By Phil Hecken, on July 12th, 2014

By Phil Hecken

As many of you know, I looooooove the work of the guys who run the Gridiron Uniform Database (GUD, for short), which was the brainchild of Timmy Brulia and Bill Schaefer, and was quickly joined by Rob Holecko (who also runs the UWFFL, which appears on Uni Watch most Saturdays). The GUD expanded into other areas (baseball, basketball), but it is THE go-to reference point for the history of NFL uniforms, and I’m pleased that Uni Watch was able to help those guys along on their venture. They even recently celebrated their third anniversary!

But the GUD guys are about more than just the NFL, and today, I’m joined by Rob Holecko who is going to bring you up to date on the progress of the USFLUD, which details the uniforms worn by the (now-defunct, thank you very much Mr. Trump) United States Football League, which many of us can still fondly remember. It only was in existence for three seasons (1983-85), competing not against the NFL in the fall, but the spring and summer. There are numerous sites on the USFL, but if you want a pretty solid history of the league, from its rise to demise, Wiki is pretty solid.

Anyhoo, Rob’s here to tell you about the USFLUD, so I’ll just hand the reins of today’s lede to him right now.

. . .

The USFL Uniform DatabaseBy Rob Holecko

As you know, the Gridiron Uniform Database recently added a sister site devoted to the USFL, The USFL Uniform Database. This week we are happy to announce that we have mostly completed researching what teams wore week-by-week during the three years of this league and have completed adding it to our site.

Tim, Bill and I would like to thank a contributor who did much of the legwork on this research, a gentleman who chooses to only be identified here as ‘smith03’. From newspaper articles and YouTube clips we were able to determine which uniform combos were worn in all but four of the 414 games the USFL played, which includes 396 regular season games, 14 playoff games, 3 USFL Championships and one postseason exhibition game in London.

To find our weekly tracking, just click on the main links to the seasons on the front page, and there you will find links to each week, similar to the navigation of the NFL pages at the Gridiron Uniform Database. About five years ago, Phil and Jim Vilkdissected the USFL in two parts for Uni Watch, but now we would like to share a lot of the minor uniform details of the USFL uniforms that we’ve uncovered in tracking the week-to-week uniforms.

Some of these details you probably were aware of, while others you may not have known.

White At Home. Just like in the NFL, although some franchises preferred to wear white at home, the majority of the teams wore their color uniforms in front of their own fans. Some teams like New Jersey, Houston and Denver never wore white at home, and some teams, like Tampa Bay and Arizona, senisibly chose to wear white for later in the season daytime games in the heat, but stuck with colors for primetime games and when it wasn’t as hot.

During the 1985 season, the Birmingham Stallions (pictured above) exclusively wore white at home on the hot Astroturf of Legion Field, while the 1983 Washington Federals wore white at home in the first half of the year (presumably the cooler part of the season), yet for the later part of the season they went with their green color jerseys.

Color Vs. Color. So far in our research we were able to determine only once that it happened. On Saturday June 2, 1984, the Chicago Blitz, wearing red, faced the Oklahoma Outlaws, who were wearing black. It was a primetime game on ESPN, we don’t know if the plan was to go color-vs-color, or if there was some sort of miscommunication. Chicago themselves had worn white at home the previous week against New Jersey, so maybe they assumed Oklahoma was planning on wearing white at home in Tulsa?

Helmet Issues. The Michigan Panthers chose team colors of “royal plum” and “champagne”, but did you know that when their first helmets came in they must have had a hard time matching champagne, because they actually wore silver helmets for their first four games in 1983. They had the color of the helmets corrected in time for their Week 5 game. Similarly the 1984 expansion Memphis Showboats played only their first game without a helmet stripe.

Uniform Patches. Aside from the Tampa Bay Bandits donning a Union Jack flag patch in an exhibition game in London, the only patch worn during three years of play in the USFL was the Championship Game patch wore by teams playing in the three Championship Games. There were no memorial patches for anyone who died, and of course no commemorative anniversary patches for the young league. And no one wore pink to fight breast cancer or camoflauge to support the military, either.

Sock Issues. Some teams, like the 1985 Jacksonville Bulls and the 1985 Oakland Invaders wore both solid socks and striped socks during a season, but did you know the Los Angeles Express actually wore two different sock stripe patterns during the 1984 season? After wearing thick blue stripes in 1983, for the first six weeks of the season they had a narrow red and blue stripe pattern, but beginning in Week 7, they had two thick blue stripes. In 1985, they switched to yet another stripe pattern.

Oakland Invaders 1985 Uniform Combinations. While the ’85 Invaders wore two different sock patterns, during a segment of the season they also wore a different uniform font style (pictured above). Mixing different jersey combos with different sock stripe patterns, and add in an additional combo when they made it to the championship game and added the Championship Game Patch, the Invaders wound up wearing seven different uniform combos!

Sure, this isn’t the same thing as the 1970s Pittsburgh Pirates (MLB) mixing and matching yellow, black and pinstripe uniforms as these are very minute details, but still it’s quite remarkable that they managed seven different version of basically a home and away uniform in twenty one games.

More Helmet Issues. The Philadelphia Stars and the Pittsburgh Maulers each did a minor tweak after Week 5 of the 1984 season, with both teams adding white to their helmet logo to presumably improve the contrast. We can only assume it is a coincidence that these two changes occured the same week.

Unapproved Wrangler Jersey. I believe this was recently mentioned in something linked to in the Uni Watch ticker, but after the Arizona Wranglers switched from their blue and gold 1983 colors to a red and copper color scheme for the 1984 season, they apparently failed to meet a deadline to get league approval to change their color jersey from blue to red. So they were not allowed to wear their red jersey at all. They wore white for both their home and away games. Counting the three postseason games after the season, they wore their white jersey twenty-one times, which has to be a record for most times a professional team has worn one jersey in a season.

But one wonders what would have happened if they had faced a team that chose to wear white at home? Would the league have relented and let them wear the red jersey, perhaps enforcing a uniform violation penalty at the opening kickoff? Or would they have required the team to wear the 1983 blue jersey in the previous scheme? Would the Wranglers have even had a supply of the previous years jerseys available to use, numbered for the current players? Or would the league have simply told an opponent they’d have to wear their color jersey, because Arizona only had their white jersey available to wear?

The Wranglers merged with the Oklahoma Outlaws before the 1985 season and changed to a completely different color scheme, so the red jersey seen here never saw game action.

Full Name On Back. This isn’t really related to week-to-week uniform tracking, but appropiate for Uni Watch none-the-less. Bart Oates and his brother Brad played on the Philadelphia Stars together, so it explains why Bart (and presumably Brad as well) was wearing ‘Full Name on Back’ during the 1984 Championship Game against Arizona, which was played in Tampa thirty years ago this week.

No Alternate Third Jerseys. While Arizona only wore one jersey in 1984, no team wore a third jersey. That certainly is to be expected in this era as merchandising and fan apparel (especially for a struggling upstart league like the USFL) were not what they are today. But with the USFL setting itself up as the anti-establishment alternative to the NFL, wouldn’t it have been neat to see a team experiment with a third jersey?

What colors would you like to have seen? A red Oklahoma Outlaws jersey? A yellow Oakland Invaders jersey? A green San Antonio Gunslingers jersey? (Wait a minute, didn’t they wear green?) But that was an idea that would have been well ahead of its time, although might have seemed just right for the USFL.

Finally, one last thing. We mentioned that we determined the uniform combos worn in 410 of 414 games, but what about the remaining four? The following four games remain unaccounted for:

1984 Week 12 – Chicago at Denver

1984 Week 16 – Jacksonville at Arizona

1985 Week 15 – San Antonio at Arizona

1985 Week 15 – Tampa Bay at Orlando

Now we can certainly assume that Chicago wore white at Denver wearing black, since we have yet to see Denver wear white at home. But Chicago did go color-vs-color once against a team wearing black, so until we see proof, we’ll leave that as unaccounted for.

We’ve already mentioned that Arizona only wore white in 1984, so we’re pretty sure they wore white against Jacksonville as well, but again with no visual evidence, we’d just be assuming. Same thing for the two 1985 games, since Arizona (now the Outlaws) wore both white and black at home in 1985, we just can’t be for certain, and we assume Orlando wore blue for home night games, but if it was a hot day game, they could have worn white as well. So if you can provide any photographic evidence of either of those four games, or have any additions or corrections to what we have posted regarding any of these games, feel free to comment below and let us know!

We hope you enjoy this latest addition to our website!

. . .

Thanks, Rob — great job with the USFLUD! Readers, I know we’re still (for two more days) in futbol and not football mode, but this was a nice little reminder that both the NCAA and the league where they play…for pay… is just around the corner (and of course, the CFL, for those of you who like your points scored by sixes, threes, and ones, is in full swing).

Colorize This!

Occasionally, I will be featuring wonderful, high-quality black and white photographs that are just begging to be colorized.

Nice batch today — from the usual suspects: George Chilvers and Bruce Menard. As always, they’re wonderful. Click on any photos to enlarge:

Up first is George:

. . .

Hi Phil et al

A few for you this week, as I’m getting into my folders and trying to complete some I’ve started over time, and for one reason or another never got finished.

The first is Liverpool playing a friendly at Osasuna in Spain in 1958. The Liverpool captain (in the white shirt) is Billy Liddell – such a star of his time that Liverpool were often called “Liddellpool”. I actually went to school with Billy’s twin sons (they were a year older than me). I really quite like this picture.

. . .

The second brings together Billy Liddell again (next in line for the handshake from Clementine Spencer-Churchill, Winston Churchill’s wife) with team captain and later Man United manager Matt Busby, and Bill Shankly (just had his hand shaken) who of course became Liverpool’s iconic manager. The game is a 1942 wartime international between England and Scotland at Wembley, and for any colonials who aren’t sure this is the Scottish team :)

. . .

Finally, I know Paul does not fully participate in my passion for football (insisting that it is “soccer”), but I know he likes striped socks. And here both teams from Hungary display the best of the art. The game is undated (but I’ll suggest early 60s) between a well-known Ferencvaros (in the green and white) and Videoton.

George

. . .

Next is Bruce, who actually sent this in on July 3rd (but since I was on vacation last weekend, it’s running now):

And after all that, George sent me one more. So here is Mr. Chilvers with the wrap:

Phil

I sent you a trio of colourisations last week, and thought that would be enough in one batch.

However this week football has lost a legendary figure, Alfredo Di Stefano, and so I have produced this colourisation in honour of him.

Alfredo was a footballer extraordinaire – he played international football for three countries (Colombia, Argentina and Spain) and led the attack of one of the greatest club sides the world has known – Real Madrid in the late 1950s and early 1960s. The team won 5 successive European Cups in the inaugural years of the competition. Their all white kit became synonymous with success, to such an extent that Leeds United adopted the kit in the 1960s, and coincidentally had their most successful era too.

This picture shows Alfredo (on the right) with another big-name star of the time, Frenchman Raymond Kopa who played for Stade Reims in the 1956 final (this picture is from that game) and later played alongside Di Stefano at Real.

RIP Alfredo Di Stefano

George

. . .

Thanks George and Bruce. Tremendous stuff, as always. Please keep them coming!

U.W.F.F.L. Spring League

UWFFL Developmental League – Week 17by Rob Holecko

We are back for the next to last week of competition for the UWFFL’s 2014 Spring Developmental League. There are 54 teams competing in six groups and the teams that finish in the top three places in each group will advance to Division II in the Fall, while the teams that finish in 4th through 6th places will advance to Division III.

Last week our games did not appear in Uni Watch to vote on, however the games went on as scheduled. Cheyenne defeated Pontiac in a crucial game, while Dayton demolished Wichita 8-1 and St. John’s and Providence played to a 5-5 tie. Hopefully this week vote totals will increase a little with this column appearing in Uni Watch. This week there are a lot of key games throughout the league: Teams such as Shreveport, Baltimore, Buffalo, just to name a few really need to get a win this week as they battle for the final spots to advance.

Our focus right now, however, turns to Group F where six teams will be playing their final game this week. While the bottom five teams are fighting to finish in the top six with Boise facing North Dakota and Whitehorse taking on Spokane in crucial games, our spotlight game this week is the Yellowknife Lumberjacks (7-0) hosting the Calgary Alpines (6-1).

While both teams are assured of advancing to Division II, Yellowknife is looking to clinch the Group title and finish undefeated. If Calgary wins, both teams will finish tied at 7-1, and they will share the group title. The six group winners and two wild cards will compete for the Developmental League championship, so if 7-1 isn’t good enough to grab a Wild Card outright, a Calgary win means these two teams will face each other again in a tiebreaker game in two weeks to decide who advances to the playoffs.

Be sure to head over to uwfantasyfootballleague.com to vote on all the games, and we’ll see you next week with the final week of action.

Today’s ticker was mostly complied by Paul — thanks, buddy

Baseball News: Check this out — someone in the National League dugout at the 1937 All-Star Game was wearing a “National All-Star” jersey. A bat boy, perhaps? (Great find by Tom Shieber). ”¦ Joanna Zwiep notes that Cubs rookie Arismendy Alcantara’s NOB on his blue jersey appears to be riding a bit low. … Last night, the Brewers wore their retro BP caps & jerseys for their game against the Cardinals. More photos here. … We’ve seen this before (several times, in fact), but with the All Star Game coming up next week, it’s apropos: the 1976 NL All Star team photo (from Patrick O’Neill). Patrick notes, “all the NL All-Stars are wearing a pillbox style NL hat whose genesis must have come from the Pirates.” (Actually, in 1976, several teams went with the pillbox style caps, and Paul has covered that extensively). … Adam Walter writes, “So I am wearing an officially licensed expensive polyester Cincinnati reds shirt and noticed something ‘off.’ Don’t know if just my expensive shirt or indicative of the reds logo, but the ends of the wishbone c are different. The top comes to a point, where the bottom comes to a bevel or serif (don’t know the correct term).” … Longtime reader/follower Ed Westfield watched The Battered Bastards of Baseball on Netflix (It’s also showing locally at the Village East). Ed notes, “This baseball doc is worth checking out. Bing Russell’s Portland Mavericks were the real life Bad-News-Bears-meets-the-Bronx-Zoo. The film doesn’t focus on their uni’s but definitely shows them off, which were classic double-knit era kits.” … The San Antonio Missions will be doing a pinkout at the park thing on Sunday (via Andrew Domingo). More information here. … Looks like the Reds Visitors clubhouse is a little out of date on the Marlins logo (thanks to Andy Garigliano). … Michael Morse of the Astros Giants has joined the Hunter Pence biker shorts club (photo from Cork Gaines).

And that will do it for today, folks. Big (huge) thanks to Rob for the lede (and the usual UWFFL), the colorizers (George & Bruce), and Paul, for handling the ticker for most of the day. Not that anyone cares, but I was actually playing in a tennis tournament for most of yesterday, and actually ended up “winning”* the “b” flight (there were two sections, if you will, called “flights” — an “a” and a “b”). As a result, I was off the grid for most of the day, and Paul offered to help out with the ticker (and Rob also provided the USFL lede on short notice). So, thanks guys — you helped me out in a pinch.

*I actually didn’t “win” the “b” flight — my partner and I tied for first and because we’d already played for about 5 hours in the hot sun, we flipped a coin — the “winner” got to play the winner of the “a” flight, the “loser” didn’t have to play anymore. I “won” by not having to play anymore — the team we tied with went on to knock off the other finalist, and ended up giving us the trophy. Nice guys. Anyhoo, there was no way I wanted to play in that final after a full day, so that was mint.

You guys have a wonderful Saturday, and I’ll be back with a very special post tomorrow, as we wrap up the Futbol season. OK? OK!

“I’m just curious exactly how you define ‘culturally inappropriate’. If the team is going to wear it’s ‘Gigantes’ jersey, does a white fan showing up wearing an oversized sombrero get kicked out too, or are we just banning blackface and Indians/Braves fans wearing feathers?”

53 comments to Doing a Damn GUD Job Tracking the USFL

Big fan of the Jacksonville Bulls unis. One of my favorite helmets ever.

Rich|
July 12, 2014 at 8:32 am |

“Michael Morse of the Astros has joined the Hunter Pence biker shorts club (photo from Cork Gaines)”

Michael Morse (and Hunter Pence) plays for the Giants.

Phil Hecken|
July 12, 2014 at 10:51 am |

Gah. Brainlock — now fixed.

Thresh8|
July 12, 2014 at 8:44 am |

Memphis Showboat fan here; always liked the paddlewheel abstraction. (And I noticed the Quad City Steamwheelers picked up on the motif later. With any team west of the Pecos liable to pick up the cowboy / bronc-bustin / ropin / bull-riding imagery, it strikes me odd that more of the riverboat history hasn’t made it into sports for the Misssissippi and Ohio Rivers.

I’m guessing it had something to do with the fact that, of the other 11 teams that started 1983 with Washington, 5 (Birmingham, Chicago, New Jersey, Philadelphia, and Tampa Bay) wore red as their base color and 4 more teams (Arizona, Boston, Los Angeles, and Oakland) wore blue as their base color. I’ve heard that green was chosen as a shout-out to American currency but I can’t verify that fact.

ChrisH|
July 12, 2014 at 7:04 pm |

“What colors would you like to have seen?”

New Jersey swaps color schemes with Washington at the get-go and the Generals take the field in a green camoflage alt?

Steve D|
July 12, 2014 at 9:00 am |

That first colorization is the most natural looking I have seen…great job. Are you constantly refining your process? Has there been a recent breakthrough?

George Chilvers|
July 12, 2014 at 1:19 pm |

“Constantly refining” is the answer.

I’m never completely happy with the result, and am always looking at ways to refine and improve.

No particular recent breakthrough, and I still use an old version of Photoshop, but I am constantly changing small elements to hopefully make things more realistic.

Cort|
July 12, 2014 at 2:32 pm |

Anyone who has ever attempted a colorization appreciates your genius, George. It is high art to make these look as good as you do.

That’s not to take anything away from the other colorizers. That Polo Grounds pic, for instance, is wonderful.

I love the colorizations — it’s my favorite part of UniWatch.

LarryB|
July 12, 2014 at 3:09 pm |

I agree with Cort.

Nice job colorizers. And as I have said in the past the guys at GUD do tremendous work and it is fun to see USFL too.

When looking at the 1976 NL All Star team photo I accidentally clicked to the 1977 photo and that’s even more interesting. There’s 3 Pirates and they’re wearing 3 different combinations. While Dave Parker and John Candelaria are wearing yellow jerseys and pants, The Cobra is wearing a yellow cap. And the 3rd Pirate, can’t tell who it is, is wearing a black.jersey AND cap. I haven’t looked through the “Buc Tracker” thing on here but I don’t remember seeing them wearing black hat on black jersey or yellow on yellow.

This is a very weaselly statement, especially considering it takes two clicks to get to the point that this is just one solitary random blogger’s opinion. Not that there’s anything wrong with bloggers, it’s just that I was expecting maybe a consensus, or a voice of some authority.

As for the jersey itself, a timeless and classy design sure (good enough to have been aped by the US on a number of occasions going back to 1950) but there’s more to good uniform design than just being minimalist and old. Is it nice? Certainly. Is it the best of all time? Well, since I’m not a teenage girl with a tumblr account I’m naturally averse to such pointless hyperbole.

George Chilvers|
July 12, 2014 at 1:32 pm |

I agree.

I’ve been around an awful lot longer than many here, and while it’s a nice kit, and I’m not really into comparisons (to me they are fine or not fine – I don’t like to rank them), I would be hard pushed to say it is the best of all time.

scottrj|
July 12, 2014 at 2:49 pm |

Curiously enough, The ESPN World Cup Companion coffee table book published prior to the 2010 WC rates that Peru uni as one of the 5 best of all time, the others being Argentina, Brazil, the USSR & Senegal (2002). As the 5 worst it decrees the US (1994), Germany (same year), Denmark (1986), Croatia (any year) & Mexico (1994 goalie jersey).

Padday|
July 12, 2014 at 3:29 pm |

Croatia (any year) is one of the worst? I think that alone right there is enough to dismiss completely the opinions of The ESPN World Cup Companion coffee table book. Philistines clearly!

Mo|
July 12, 2014 at 12:16 pm |

Can you not refer to Manchester United as “Man U”? It’s the improper way for shortening the team name. That referance is offensive to Manchesterians. It’s either “Man United” or “Man Utd”. Nothing else.

Eww, why? All we’ve seen from Adidas in the sports uniform world lately is templates. Have you forgotten the fruit stripe NCAA basketball uniforms, or the “hey let’s take 2 teams that look really similar to each other and give them ‘rivalry’ uniforms that are also really similar to each other” (Wisconin/Nebraska football)thing, or the NBA X-mas jerseys with sleeves? Nevermind how badly they’ve butchered the entire concept of UCLA’s shoulder loops. Nike may be a bit obsessed with bad number fonts, but at least they’re trying to keep the teams somewhat unique.

Not that I am suggesting Nike would do better, but take a look at some of the college teams Nike outfits (or some of the Olympic teams from this past winter) — if TOLD not to go too nuts, they are more than capable of producing some good ones.

Of course, going back to CCM or Koho (or whoever made them pre-Reebok) would probably be best, if no longer possible.

terriblehuman|
July 12, 2014 at 1:15 pm |

And to pile on, Adidas’s World Cup uniforms are aesthetically and conceptually worse than Nike’s.

El Duderino|
July 12, 2014 at 2:47 pm |

Which will be on full display today and tomorrow.

Will S|
July 12, 2014 at 10:48 pm |

If I was picking any company to take over NHL uniforms it wouldn’t be any of the large ones. CCM is owned by Reebok and I don’t trust them to more than slap a CCM logo on what is just a Reebok product.

Wouldn’t pick Nike or Reebok or any of the really big players.

Some company like SP Apparel, or some other smaller company would be a better choice. You can’t protect the us from all of the NHL owners’ stupidity regarding uniforms, but I think with a smaller company that has been making hockey jerseys for a while might be more concerned with tradition and making a good product and less concerned with stamping their template on everyone or “creating a story”. At least I think they would be selling the owners less stupid ideas to agree to. They might even sell the fans replica jerseys that have a quality in the ballpark of the price tag. Then again maybe I’m way off and just dreaming.

Lose Rem|
July 12, 2014 at 1:32 pm |

Geez, they talked right over Paul on Wait Wait.

Still, pretty damn cool!

Cort|
July 12, 2014 at 2:37 pm |

“Wait, Wait, Don’t Tell Me” would be a lot more entertaining if instead of getting an old news reader’s voice on their answering machine, winners were invited to punch any panel member they chose, square in the face.

Except Paula Poundstone. She’s had a hard life.

Connie|
July 12, 2014 at 3:15 pm |

George Chilvers! Amazingly wonderful imagery. Hard to pick favorites, but that Hungarian photo is sublime.

Notice how high men wore their shorts back then?

George Chilvers|
July 12, 2014 at 4:23 pm |

Thanks Connie!

Kyle O|
July 12, 2014 at 4:52 pm |

Looks like Lebron is actually wearing 32 with Cleveland

1vox|
July 12, 2014 at 9:09 pm |

IF that is true, I would expect the quickly manufactured #6 LeBron Cav’s jerseys to become collectible.

Maybe you’re thinking of LeBron’s turn in the McDonald’s All-American game. He wore #32 in that, because #23 is on ice for Michael Jordan. And I remember LeBron wanted to wear #6 in Miami because he didn’t want to wear MJ’s #23 anymore. (Cough cough merchandising.)

Ciaran|
July 12, 2014 at 7:56 pm |

I’ve noticed that the new Hornets jerseys aren’t available for sale yet. Because of this, I’m assuming the NBA is holding off until they replace every teams’ current retail jerseys with the tweaked version that has the NBA logo on the back.

Do you think that’s a likely explanation and should I hold off on buying a jersey for my team (the Knicks) until nearer the season just to be safe?

Also, on the subject of the Knicks, their summer league team is using new fonts on their uniforms, probably a precursor to what the Westchester D-League team will wear.

Make sure your text and background has the proper contrast. There’s evidence showing that white text on a black background is easiest for most people to read, but other colors are fine so long as they’re readable. Also keep in mind that people with visual impairments may not be able to read your site if the contrast is poor.